There has long been a friendly rivalry between physicians and surgeon, much as there is between the residents of Glasgow and those or Edinburgh or equally between those two great cities at either end of the East Lancs Road, Liverpool and Manchester. It dates back hundreds of years to the days of the ‘barber surgeons’. In those times, surgeons were not qualified as ‘doctors’ and therefore not entitled to be addressed as such. They were usually barbers who offered ‘extras’. They pulled teeth, straightened broken bones, lanced boils and stitched wounds. They were classed as mere ‘tradesmen’ and considered a ‘rough lot’ by the physicians of the day. They were therefore pointedly referred to as ‘mister’ in a derogatory fashion.
Meanwhile the physicians, by virtue of their medical training and qualification, considered themselves to be vastly superior. They regarded themselves as members of a scientific profession as they cheerfully applied bloodsucking leeches to patients with anaemia and treated syphilis with purgatives! Later, as the benefits of surgery became appreciated, formal qualifications were introduced and surgeons became ‘respectable’. Surgeons are now required to gain a medical degree to become a ‘doctor’ before they become doubly qualified as surgeons, entitling them to adopt the title ‘mister’. Over time, the rivalry between physicians and surgeons has become little more than friendly banter, but nothing pleases surgeons more than to cure a patient by performing an operation when medical treatment has failed. Equally, physicians gain great pleasure from visiting a surgical ward and resolving a problem that has baffled the surgeons.
In some circles there is a view that hospital consultants may be categorised according to their personality; surgeons haughty and over-confident, physicians indecisive and insecure,. Psychiatrists may be considered distant and preoccupied, their heads in the clouds and pathologists, only confident of their diagnosis when an autopsy has been performed. This is exemplified in a medical joke which some of you maybe familiar.
Hospital consultants from different specialities were on a duck shooting expedition. As the first two ducks flew over, the physician, with his reputation for procrastination, raised his gun but then hesitated, unable to decide which duck to shoot first, allowing both ducks to fly to safety. When it was the psychiatrists turn, the same thing happened, the psychiatrist later explaining; ‘I didn’t shoot because I couldn’t decide whether the ducks were real or a figment of my imagination.’ Finally, it was the turn of the surgeon. As the birds flew over, two shots rang out in quick succession and both ducks fell to the ground. The surgeon promptly turned to the pathologist saying; ‘Well, tell me what they died of then.’
The beauty of the story is that it can be varied according to the audience. The one favoured by junior doctors being the one in which the surgeon, having shot the ducks, turns to his lowly house officer and shouts; ‘Well don’t just stand there dithering, boy. Go and fetch them!’
There are many more short medical stories such as this on my blog, alongside details of my novels and talks. All available at www.medicaltales.org